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More than 20 countries condemn China for mass detentions in East Turkistan

People hold signs protesting China's treatment of the Uyghur people, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on 8 May 2019.
File photo/ Reuters/Lindsey Wasson

By Stephanie Nebehay | Reuters

GENEVA, Switzerland, 11 July 2019

Nearly two dozen countries have called on China to halt its mass detention of ethnic Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region, the first such joint move on the issue at the UN Human Rights Council, according to diplomats and a letter seen by Reuters.

UN experts and activists say at least 1 million Uyghurs and other Muslims are held in detention centres in the remote western region. China describes them as training centres helping to stamp out extremism and give people new skills.

The unprecedented letter to the president of the forum, dated 8 July, was signed by the ambassadors of 22 countries. Australia, Canada and Japan were among them, along with European countries including Britain, France, Germany and Switzerland, but not the United States which quit the forum a year ago.

It fell short of a formal statement being read out at the Council or a resolution submitted for a vote, as sought by activists. This was due to governments’ fears of a potential political and economic backlash from China, diplomats said.

“It is a first collective response on Xinjiang,” a Western diplomat told Reuters on Wednesday. “The idea of a resolution was never on the cards.”

Another envoy said: “It’s a formal step because it will be published as an official document of the Council … It is a signal.”

In a statement, Human Rights Watch later welcomed the letter as “important not only for Xinjiang’s population, but for people around the world who depend on the UN’s leading rights body to hold even the most powerful countries to account.”

China’s Foreign Ministry said the letter “neglected the facts”, was a slander against China, an interference in the country’s internal affairs and the politicisation of human rights.

“China is strongly dissatisfied with resolutely opposed to this. We have already lodged stern representations with the relevant countries,” spokesman Geng Shuang told a daily news briefing in Beijing.

China had taken successful steps against terror and extremism in Xinjiang, which has been broadly supported by the people of the region, he added.

Large-Scale Places of Detention

The letter voices concern at reports of unlawful detention in “large-scale places of detention, as well as widespread surveillance and restrictions, particularly targeting Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang”.

It pointedly cites China’s obligations as a member of the 47-member state forum to maintain the highest standards.

“We call on China to uphold its national laws and international obligations and to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, including freedom of religion or belief in Xinjiang and across China,” the letter said.

“We call also on China to refrain from the arbitrary detention and restrictions on freedom of movement of Uyghurs, and other Muslim and minority communities in Xinjiang.”

The letter urges China to allow international independent experts, including UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, “meaningful access” to Xinjiang.

Bachelet, a former president of Chile, has pushed China to grant the United Nations access to investigate reports of disappearances and arbitrary detentions, particularly of Muslims in Xinjiang.

China’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva said last month that he hoped Bachelet would take up an invitation to visit. A UN spokeswoman said at the time that the trip, including “full access to Xinjiang”, was under discussion.

No Western delegation was willing to take the lead and expose itself as a “ringleader” through a joint statement or resolution, diplomats said. China’s delegation is “hopping mad” at the move and is preparing its own letter, a diplomat said.

At the start of the three-week session, which ends on Friday, the Xinjiang vice-governor responded to international condemnation of state-run detention camps by saying that they were vocational centres which had helped “save” people from extremist influences.

China had now effectively contained terrorism and religious extremism in Xinjiang, Vice-Governor Erkin Tuniyaz told the council in an appearance that was sharply criticised by the United States.

Comments

There are 2 comments so far.

2.

Ex-Libtard says:on 13 July 2019 at 11:04 pm

22 countries sign a letter condemning China’s oppression of Uyghur Muslims. Not one of them was a muslim country.

Hillel Neuer asks the UNHRC: We just heard from Pakistan on behalf of 55 Islamic states about Islamophobia. Yet if they truly care about Muslims, why have they failed to bring a single resolution for 1 million Muslims being detained in camps and persecuted for their religion by China.

1.

Tibet Bhu says:on 12 July 2019 at 6:42 pm

The communist regime of China is committing the worst human rights abuse in East Turkistan & occupied Tibet. It is committing cultural genocide in these two regions where the people of these regions have their own culture. language and religion. In order to legitimize their illegal occupation of Tibet and East Turkistan, they have embarked upon to impose a policy of assimilation of Tibetans and Ugyur people into Chinese. It mercilessly forcing the Tibetans and Ugyurs to expunge their culture and religion in order to exterminate them as distinct peoples with their own identity that is entirely different from the Chinese. If this is not ethnic cleansing, what is ethnic cleansing? The world has rightly condemned this heinous crime and this must be recognized as crimes against humanity. All peoples of the world have the right to their unique culture and belief system. This is a universal human right. No authority in whatever name or form have the right to deprive any people or group of their inalienable right to practice their religion and culture under any pretext. The world must not turn a blind eye to the genocide that is being perpetrated by the Chinese regime in Tibet and East Turkistan. Such acts are no different from the holocaust that was visited by Nazi Germany upon the Jewish people. Communist China is the modern incarnate of Nazi Germany, preaching extreme nationalism and embarking upon territorial expansion. The concentration camps in East Turkistan, separating children from their parents to transform them forcibly into Chinese, severe restrictions on Tibetans in their own country, religious persecution and racial vilification are in par with Nazi Germany’s final solution policy towards the Jews. The world must not allow another repeat
of holocaust by CCP.